Monthly Archives: October 2026

A field in Punjab littered with plastic waste, highlighting environmental concerns and pollution issues.

Episode 5

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The Togetherness Project

Today’s Topic – Plastics Waste, AI and Water

We were going to have an episode focusing on social things. How early childhood and supportive communities have a positive effect on life. That will be coming to you in a few weeks.

What happened last week?:

  • The Federal Government abandoned plans to require improved packaging standards to reduce waste and promote recycling1
  • Data centre plan for the NT to use gas from Beetaloo basin rather than renewables2
  • Former employee of Antrhopic, Jacob Coxon says I “earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”.3
  • Committee for Ballarat highlights the need for water infrastructure if the planned expansion to 200k people – and a resource recovery centre4

The Issue – What to do about Plastic Waste, AI and Water

So today we’re going to talk about why it is critically important that we remove fossil fuel usage as rapidly as it is possible to do so. We will also talk about the risks of AI

Packaging and recycling

Sally is an advocate for removal of plastics from our environment. Let’s hear from her…

The takeout from this is that we are using vast amounts of plastic packaging. Produce in plastic containers, wrapped in plastic and then put into plastic bags. Each piece of plastic embodies fossil fuels and adds to the mountains of plastic pollution.

The NT Data Centre

This hit the news last week as we discovered a deal done to use the newly commissioned Beetaloo Basin gas field to power (generate electricity) for a large data centre in the NT. Is this a good idea? Probably not.

  • Cost, energy and water consumption
  • Plans for more of the same
  • Viable alternatives and plans to export energy to Asia
  • Why do we want them anyway?

Can AI kill us?

A former employee of Anthropic Jacob Coxon has joined other researchers into AI to say that there is a realistic chance that AI could kill people and at the extreme end of the spectrum destroy humanity.

All of this is speculative, however the fact that AI has already “gone rogue” and hacked businesses when it was supposed to be contained and unable to interact with the real world, says that there is something in this report.

Water for Ballarat and Waste to Resource

The Committee for Ballarat has put out a 5 point outline for projects to invest in jobs, growth and livability in Ballarat and Western Victoria. It highlights the need for water infrastructure to support the growth that is pretty well locked in for Ballarat as it services a population of over 300k people in the West

There are three projects focused on economic growth and two on infrastructure that allows growth in population in a sustainable way. The two infrastructure ones are:

  • Water infrastructure is essential to allow more housing to be built. Not to mention the impacts of a drying planet as we heat up to at least 1.8 degrees above pre-industrial levels
  • Resource recovery is the gold standard of the Circular Economy. A growing population needs to handle waste and not by landfill. The argument is both cost and for recovering valuable resources

The Response

What can we do?

  • Avoid plastic packaging whenever possible.
  • Move away from Fossil fuels. Doing so means there is less production of plastics and therefore more sustainable products will be used for packaging
  • Smart Living Ballarat has monthly sessions on how to avoid waste and tap into the Circular Economy
  • See what you can do to get an EV, solar panels and similar.
  • Opt out of casual AI for searching and using applications. If you dont need it then avoiding its use will save energy and reduce demand for data centres
  • Read the proposal from the Committee for Ballarat for some ideas.
  • Talk to your local member/council about the Circular Economy, sustainability and water conservation. It works when they know someone cares about these things

The final takeaway is that we know what we can do to make it better and we need a concerted effort to bring about change – TOGETHER

  1. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/sep/12/labor-ditch-new-packaging-laws-breaking-promise-plastic-waste [↩]
  2. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-22/beetaloo-digital-energy-ai-hyperscale-data-centre-40-billion/106943690 [↩]
  3. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-09/anthropic-researcher-coxon-quits-over-human-threat/107134164 [↩]
  4. State Election Advocacy – https://committeeforballarat.com/our-news/publications/ [↩]